We now deeply regretted offering our services to AC. The ten or so people squeezed into the tiny sitting room did not match my usual audience demographic. I couldn’t ever remember presenting to anyone who hid their face behind a cardboard mask of Charles II.

The plump blond girl swinging her short legs particularly annoyed me. She eyed the tin of lemon-flavoured boiled sweets on the trolley. Why would she be interested in anything I had to say about social media? When she announced that she was hungry and really needed to eat a sweet, I said that I didn’t believe her and, in any case, the contents of the tin were not mine to give away.

Meanwhile in the next room poor TPR was hunched up on a bench awaiting his turn to participate in warm-up exercises. “Never again” I muttered as I set off home to prepare my slides.

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I recognised a few faces around the table, including JK, my former Head of School. It was FG who had called the meeting, the purpose of which was to discuss how much I enjoyed my job. Admittedly I had suffered a tough time recently, such as the episode with CL when I wasted a whole afternoon travelling the bus routes of Edinburgh in an attempt to honour a meeting request. (CL and I should swapped mobile phone numbers in advance, and not have involved DS in the muddle.)

However, I was unsure that the extent to which I had “fun” at work merited a discussion with representatives from across the School. It was bad enough knowing that you were a frequent focus of office gossip, but for one name to be the single agenda item at a formal meeting really took the biscuit. Anyway, I explained, the “fun” part of my life lay elsewhere – on Dreamaticus.